The Walking Dead

Cecil Darke's, because he had been fooled by the cause he'd followed. Julian Wright's, because of what would be said to him after the burned sausages had been served. He thought betrayal made a bad start to a day — to any day.

'Are you always so damn miserable, Mr Banks?'

Ignored him, walked a pace behind and a stride to the side. Saw the cars, saw the faces, saw the square opening out in front of him. Saw the crowds in the far distance.

'All right, what's the story? What's going to happen to me?'

Banks said quietly, as if it was a conversation piece, 'The trial ends and you go into protective custody. You make a statement, which has not yet been done for fear of prejudicing the case you're hearing. If you're lucky you won't be called as a witness in subsequent proceedings because there's a stack of first-hand evidence of arson. You are then let go. You go, if you have an ounce of sense, about as far as is possible. Change your name, change your identity. You forget everything of your past — including your wife and your daughter because they make for the weak link. Only thing you remember is to look over your shoulder, keep looking. Never stop looking into shadows, into darkness, into the faces of strangers. Never think, for what you did, that you're forgotten. How's that, Mr Wright, for a reason to be cheerful?'

'I don't fathom you. I'll miss you, been good having you alongside, does the ego wonders.. Yes, I'll miss you — but I don't understand you.'

'You shouldn't try to.'

He saw the rise of the packed steps, heard the clock ahead strike the quarter-hour, saw the snaking lines of the queues in the square. He thought of betrayal and death, and what a sniper had done, and of a psalm not spoken.

Chapter 20

Saturday, Day 17

The square opened out to their left. Nothing was said between them, and his Principal led, Banks following. Every eye that passed him, men and women who bustled forward as if delay were a crime, was fixed on the steps and the great monolith that was the shopping centre; rock music played loudly. He studied each front display window — used the reflections off them to check his rear — and each business doorway and each alleyway between them, because that was his training.

He reckoned his training protected him. It was not his business how one stranger ended a relationship with another. Should worry about himself, not about others, should lock himself in a cocoon of selfishness. He noticed, because he was trained to, each front window and each narrow cut where rubbish bins were stored, where there were the bottles, shit and cardboard sheets of vagrants.

The music, beating down from the centre's loudspeakers, grew in intensity. He took in faces, but none was important to him…He felt cold. Realized he was in shadow thrown down by the tower of the town hall. Shivered. Quickened his stride. In shadow, sensed a threat. Came to his Principal's shoulder, then burst back into the sunshine. But it stayed with him, lingered on the skin of his face, and his hand had flipped, without reason, to the weighted pocket of his jacket — no cause — . and his fingers had dropped to the hardness held in the pancake holster. Could not have explained it.

But David Banks had been told he was useless, had told himself he had no future.

He snapped, 'Are we nearly bloody there?'

Wright stopped, turned, gazed at him, a grin on his face. 'You seeing ghosts again, Mr Banks?'

'I just want to know if we're nearly there.'

'You're white as a damn sheet. Breakfast's what you need. Yes, we're nearly there.'

He could not have explained, to a stranger or to himself, the chill that had come to him when he had walked through the shadow cast on the pavement.

They were 'nearly there': He should have seen it, but hadn't. There was an alley with a big wheeled rubbish bin half across its entrance, then the A-shaped hoarding outside the newsagent's door and window that announced the grand opening of the bonanza sale in the town, as if it was the biggest, most vital and critical matter in the whole wide world. Now, breaking the training, his glance came off his Principal and flitted to the crowds on his left, dense and close, with the murmur of excitement given off like hot breath.

'Patience, Mr Banks, patience…We're there.' Then the mocking laugh. 'Did you really see a ghost?'

Banks snarled, couldn't help himself, 'Just bloody get on with it.'

The bell rang as his Principal opened the door. He saw that the shop was full, that it would be an age before Wright was served. The door closed after his man and Banks turned away from it, looked back up the street where they had come, and waited.

* * *

Now she spoke, said what she had rehearsed. 'There, in front of you, is the crowd. You go close to it, into it. Push hard among it. But look at nobody.'